


this sweet intoxication

by withoutwords



Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Angst, Casual Relationship, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Themes, Shotgunning, briefly underage, unhealthy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 00:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16006028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: Deran had walked out of the water so slowly it set Adrian’s teeth on edge - his stupid long hair and a crease in his forehead and those first spitting words, “Fuck’s this?”He was looking at Adrian.





	this sweet intoxication

**Author's Note:**

> My 100th post on AO3! This follows through from their first meeting until they go to Belize.

The swell was shit, the day he met Deran. It was a Sunday, and late, and his friend Bobby had dragged him down to the worst beach along the strip just to score a lousy few grams of pot. Deran had walked out of the water so slowly it set Adrian’s teeth on edge - his stupid long hair and a crease in his forehead and those first spitting words, “Fuck’s this?”

He was looking at Adrian.

“It’s Adrian,” Bobby had told him, half moving across Adrian’s front as if he expected Deran to lunge at him. “He’s cool.”

“Oh. He’s _cool_ ,” Deran repeated, as if Bobby was the special kid in class always eating the paste. He looked like a lot of things, Deran. Like an arsehole, mostly; like the don’t-give-a-fuck types that never worked hard at anything but somehow managed to get by.

Deran _did_ round Bobby a moment later, pushing Adrian’s shoulder so hard he almost fell on his arse. “Hey.”

“Jesus, _what_?”

“You don’t say much, huh?” he spat again, and Adrian translated that to: _you better not_.

It was pretty pathetic to be threatening him over some pot. The cops around here were always dealing with high-end heists and dead bodies – as if a bunch of white guys and marijuana mattered to them. “Depends. You wanna talk about this bullshit surf, or that crappy piece of plastic you call a board, then I’d probably have something to say.”

Deran looked Adrian up and down. His body betrayed him, shooting heat through his legs. “Fuck you,” was all Deran said, but the corner of his mouth curled up just the slightest.

Adrian hung back while they went to Deran’s car to sort out what Bobby wanted. He’d never seen Bobby so nervous before – but he’d never seen him buy pot off this guy before. He hadn’t stopped fidgeting since he’d picked Adrian up that morning, telling him, _I just gotta go see this guy_.

“What’s his fucking problem?” Adrian asked, later, when they were well out of earshot. He kept throwing glances over his shoulder, watching Deran shove his board away like it was just a piece of driftwood.

Bobby laughed. “He’s a _Cody_.”

 

*

 

Adrian didn’t _hate_ Oceanside. He was only 12 when his dad got the promotion; doing alright in school and settled with friends and not ready to hear _we’re moving you away from everything you enjoy, pack your bags, let’s go_. He didn’t hate Oceanside, he was just really, furiously angry for a long time – mostly to spite his family.

In the end, he still had surfing. He threw himself into it so much it almost became an obsession – clubs and meets and comps, living, breathing, _eating_ it.

When Deran Cody found him along the beach one day and actually stopped to say, “You’re good,” he wondered why that suddenly mattered more than all his trophies.

His reputation preceded him.

“So are you.”

Deran shrugged. “Maybe. But I can’t touch you out there, man.”

“That’s ‘cause you don’t work for it.”

“Really?” He made a pissed-off face, but Adrian could see he was amused. “Tell me what you really think.”

“You’re undisciplined. You think it’s gonna be magic, but it’s not. It’s practice.”

“Dude, what are you, 16 going on 80?”

Adrian hated himself for smirking at that. “I’ve had a lot of coaches.”

Deran slumped down onto the sand beside him, to his surprise. It had been months since the last time they crossed paths, and they’d barely shared more than a nod since then. He was popular, Deran – throwing parties and supplying substances and doing some of the dumbest shit Adrian’s ever seen. He was popular, but he was also detached. It felt like no-one really knew him. 

“You wanna paddle out with me then?” Deran asked, despite the fact he was wearing jeans and had no board.

“Right now?”

“Just, whenever.”

Adrian shrugged. “Sure, man. I’m here all the time.”

“I know,” Deran said, and it felt important.

 

*

 

There’d been a poster on his bedroom wall, back in San Francisco. It was Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder front and centre with his shirt unbuttoned all the way. He hates that it played any part in his sexual awakening – and doesn’t tell the story, ever, to any one – but it did. The eyes and the smile and the dreadful feeling of, _oh_ , when his mum made some comment about _you’re old enough to put a girls picture up now, a nice one mind you._

When he’d told them over the dinner table that he didn’t actually like girls, he’s not sure there was any real surprise. His mum looked disappointed and his dad called him a bunch of names and his sister tapped away on her phone, probably telling all of her friends.

But he’d gone to bed feeling okay, and woken up feeling himself, and they didn’t talk about it after that.

It was better than being hated and homeless.

“You ever think about getting out of here?” Adrian asked Deran, drunk at a party one night and huddled in some abandoned corner while Deran tried to light a blunt. He was wearing that green t-shirt that looked like he’d bought it from Goodwill, and he kept licking his lips and looking at Adrian’s mouth and making Adrian think, _maybe, maybe, maybe_.

“No? Why would I?”

“I don’t know. Better places, better surf.”

Deran scoffed, finally getting the lit smoke in his mouth. “You wanna go to Australia, man? They’ve got fuckin’ sharks over there. Big sharks. Sharks the size of my motherfucking truck.”

“Did I say Australia? Geeeeez.”

Deran pulled the smoke from his mouth and laughed, then suddenly had Adrian backed into whatever was behind him. “Open your mouth,” he said, like he was offering to put his dick in it or something, sending all of the blood in Adrian’s body south. Instead he just leaned forward to breathe smoke between his lips, a hot burn hitting the back of Adrian’s throat.

He’d wished it was something else.

“You do that before?” Deran asked, and Adrian was already too red-faced to say anything but,

“Sure.”

“Yeah? You do this?”

It wasn’t a blowjob, but it was Deran’s hand down his shorts – damp, calloused fingers wrapped too tight around his cock and squeezing. Adrian felt all the air escape him in one big, ugly breath, tipping his head back and making an ugly noise he’d regret forever.

It was _amazing_.

It didn’t take long for him to come all over Deran’s hand, his knees week as he scrambled to return the favour. He wasn’t sure if it was the mess that made Deran string a long sentence of swear words together, or the fact that once Adrian had his dick out he dropped to the ground to get his mouth around it.

Deran pulsed and pulled hair and showed no kindness whatsoever, and when he was done he whispered in Adrian’s ear, “You tell anybody I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

Adrian couldn’t stop smiling for days.

 

*  


There wasn’t a lot of space in his life for anything but surfing. He barely got through school in one piece, barely got out of home in once piece (his dad chasing him out of the door with a lot of f words and _good for nothing surf bum_ s). He worked at a gas station, and a surf shop, and picked fruit during the warmer seasons so he could afford a crappy little share house with a bunch of his friends.

Then Deran disappeared for a while too. He stopped surfing competitively, stopped coming to the beach, stopped doing much of anything except finding Adrian in random places and pulling him away for the night.

He wasn’t sure what they were, he was just sure he wanted it.

“Alright?” Deran has asked, the first time they’d fucked – rough and dirty in the back of some van Deran had borrowed from a friend. Their used condom had sat in the corner mocking him.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

“Was that …”

“My first time?” Adrian finished with a smile, enjoying the way Deran tried to pretend he didn’t care. He tucked his hair behind his ears a lot, rubbed at his nose, did this thing where he scratched at his shoulder until he was so far back he couldn’t reach. Adrian was getting to know him pretty well. They were getting comfortable.

Was that a good thing?

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. You?”

“No,” Deran told him, but didn’t seem cocky like he’d expected. Just looked away, and reached for his clothes, as if he was suddenly in a rush to get out of there.

“What’re you worried about?”

“Nothin’ man. I was just asking.”

“Hey,” Adrian said softly, grabbing at his arm to try and turn Deran around. “Hey.”

“ _What_?”

“It was good. You were good.”

He _had_ looked a little cocky then. His smile – this one, intensely private and just for Adrian – did stupid things to his insides. “Yeah?”

“Uh-huh,” Adrian said, sitting up to get closer to him, to run a hand along the soft curve of his stomach and flirt at his dick. “You wanna go again?”

Deran didn’t answer, just leaned forward enough to put a hand on Adrian’s neck and come in for a kiss. They didn’t do a lot of it, kissing, especially not the slow, tender kind that said a lot more about them than all the sex.

Deran always shied away from it.

“We don’t have to do that,” Deran said, straddling Adrian, letting Adrian see the total, tanned expanse of his body. “If it hurts. We can do other shit.”

“Okay,” Adrian agreed, and pulled him down for another kiss.

 

*

 

There were things you knew, living in Oceanside. The best places to go surfing. Where to get the freshest fish. How to get your drunk arse home without running into the cops. The other thing, the important thing – the thing no-one bothered to tell Adrian until it was too late – was to stay the fuck away from the Codys.

When people said, “You’re going with him?” if Deran offered him a ride, or other friends told him, “You’re asking for trouble,” when they’d spend hours surfing together – Adrian knew that Deran heard it. He wanted to get angry, or protest, or even just apologise; but that meant starting a conversation he knew Deran didn’t want to have. 

“I met your brother the other day,” Adrian told him once, tangled in his bedsheets. They were defined by the water, and a bed. “The tall one? Craig?”

“What?” Deran spun on him, suddenly spitting. “Where?”

“Just at one of Jack’s parties. You weren’t around.”

“Why – what did you say to him?”

“Nothing” Adrian said slowly. He understood that those things were separate. His Deran wasn’t Deran Cody, youngest son of Smurf. His Deran wasn’t Deran Cody, drug-runner and who-knew-what-else. His Deran wasn’t anything but his. They didn’t share this with any one. “He said he knew me.”

“Knew you? How?”

“I don’t know, from surfing, from,” Adrian motioned between them and then quickly realised his mistake. Deran looked like he was going to punch a hole in something. “He asked me if we were friends.”

“What did you say?”

“I just said that we hang out. Jesus, man, what’s the fucking problem?”

“Nothing,” Deran yelled, then took a fierce breath through his nose. “Nothing, I just – he can be kind of a dick. That’s all.”

“He was fine.”

Deran still looked haunted. He often did. Adrian wasn’t sure what it meant to want to be that person. To know you were on the wrong side of this story, but still chased after a happy ending.

_Stay away from the Codys._

Stay away from _Smurf Cody_ , is what they meant. And Adrian knew that Deran couldn’t.

“We should get out of here,” Deran finally said, and it was so sudden that Adrian scoffed.

“Where? Oceanside?”

“Yeah. Why not? You’re the one who talks about moving away.”

“Sure, man,” Adrian said, finally crawling out of the bed to head for a shower. “Moving away. Not _running_.”

 

*

 

The sun was barely up when they left for Belize. Deran’s truck was packed with people, and another car full followed behind, and it was just supposed to be a surf trip for a few weeks but it felt bigger than that. Deran kept catching his eye in the mirror, kept smiling like he’d won something but didn’t want to share it.

The days on the road passed in a blur, smoking, eating, and blasting music that only Deran was allowed to control. Every time they stopped for gas he’d pull Adrian into one of the dingy bathrooms and get his hand in his shorts, panting, “Can’t wait to lock you in a room and do this every day.” Adrian knew their friends were starting to catch on, but he also knew they were too smart to say anything.

“Jesus, you’re a monster,” Adrian had laughed, when they’d finally arrived at their hotel and Deran had pushed him straight onto the bed.

“Less talking, more naked,” Deran had joked, and they did, and they were, for a really long time.

It became addictive, this new Deran. With the warm, salt air billowing in the curtains and the soft music playing from outside, and Deran smiling, grinning, laughing, like he was a caged animal suddenly free. Suddenly alive.

They faced crazy swells, and met strangers on the beach, and danced around bonfires while some local musicians played further up the shore. They passed around beers, and joints, and whatever food they could afford. They clung to each other, and relished.

“You’ve kept me off my surfboard for days,” Adrian complained, eyeing off the bowl of fruit they’d filled just after they got here. It was a tiny room, and a dingy place, but it had what they needed – they had each other.

“We’ll go tomorrow, come on,” Deran urged, nosing at Adrian’s hips, and pulling at him to turn over, and burying his face in Adrian’s lower back, lower, lower, and letting go.

It was a dream, he knew. Like he knew Deran’s phone was turned off and tossed aside. Like he knew he’d be getting a slew of messages too – from Craig, and Luke, and whoever else was at Smurf’s beck and call. It was a dream, but he was going to live it for as long as he could, with Deran inside him and his mouth on Adrian’s shoulder and the beach just across the road waiting for them.

 

*

 

When they got home, Deran turned on his phone.

It buzzed at him for a full minute, making Adrian’s stomach turn.

“I gotta go,” Deran said, and when he looked at Adrian his eyes had ghosts in them.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll catch you later, man.”

“Yeah.”

Adrian always knew that Deran would come back eventually.

He just never knew which Deran he’d get.

 

*

 

_I just want it to be okay._

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Palo Santo by Years & Years. 
> 
> [Tumblr.](http://thefancyspin.tumblr.com)


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